The Titan 38 страница

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me the honor just now to speak of my motives ingiving your mother

money as of the best. They were--from my own point of view--the

best I have ever known. I will not say what I thought they were

in the beginning. I know what they were now. I am going to speak

quite frankly with you, if you will let me, as long as we are here

together. I don't know whether you know this or not, but when I

first met your mother I only knew by chance that she had a daughter,

and it was of no particular interest to me then. I went to her

house as the guest of a financial friend of mine who admired her

greatly. From the first I myself admired her, because I found her

to be a lady to the manner born--she was interesting. One day I

happened to see a photograph of you in her home, and before I could

mention it she put it away. Perhaps you recall the one. It is

in profile--taken when you were about sixteen. "

" Yes, I remember, " replied Berenice, simply--as quietly as though

she were hearing a confession.

" Well, that picture interested me intensely. I inquired about

you, and learned all I could. After that I saw another picture of

you, enlarged, in a Louisville photographer's window. I bought

it. It is in my office now--my private office--in Chicago. You

are standing by a mantelpiece. "

" I remember, " replied Berenice, moved, but uncertain.

" Let me tell you a little something about my life, will you? It

won't take long. I was born in Philadelphia. My family had always

belonged there. I have been in the banking and street-railway

business all my life. My first wife was a Presbyterian girl,

religious, conventional. She was older than I by six or seven

years. I was happy for a while--five or six years. We had two

children--both still living. Then I met my present wife. She was

younger than myself--at least ten years, and very good-looking.

She was in some respects more intelligent than my first wife--at

least less conventional, more generous, I thought. I fell in love

with her, and when I eventually left Philadelphia I got a divorce

and married her. I was greatly in love with her at the time. I

thought she was an ideal mate for me, and I still think she has

many qualities which make her attractive. But my own ideals in

regard to women have all the time been slowly changing. I have

come to see, through various experiments, that she is not the ideal

woman for me at all. She does not understand me. I don't pretend

to understand myself, but it has occurred to me that there might

be a woman somewhere who would understand me better than I understand

myself, who would see the things that I don't see about myself,

and would like me, anyhow. I might as well tell you that I have

been a lover of women always. There is just one ideal thing in

this world to me, and that is the woman that I would like to have. "

" I should think it would make it rather difficult for any one woman

to discover just which woman you would like to have? " smiled

Berenice, whimsically. Cowperwood was unabashed.

" It would, I presume, unless she should chance to be the very one

woman I am talking about, " he replied, impressively.

" I should think she would have her work cut out for her under any

circumstances, " added Berenice, lightly, but with a touch of

sympathy in her voice.

" I am making a confession, " replied Cowperwood, seriously and a

little heavily. " I am not apologizing for myself. The women I

have known would make ideal wives for some men, but not for me.

Life has taught me that much. It has changed me. "

" And do you think the process has stopped by any means? " she

replied, quaintly, with that air of superior banter which puzzled,

fascinated, defied him.

" No, I will not say that. My ideal has become fixed, though,

apparently. I have had it for a number of years now. It spoils

other matters for me. There is such a thing as an ideal. We do

have a pole-star in physics. "

As he said this Cowperwood realized that for him he was making a

very remarkable confession. He had come here primarily to magnetize

her and control her judgment. As a matter of fact, it was almost

the other way about. She was almost dominating him. Lithe,

slender, resourceful, histrionic, she was standing before him

making him explain himself, only he did not see her so much in

that light as in the way of a large, kindly, mothering intelligence

which could see, feel, and understand. She would know how it was,

he felt sure. He could make himself understood if he tried.

Whatever he was or had been, she would not take a petty view. She

could not. Her answers thus far guaranteed as much.

" Yes, " she replied, " we do have a pole-star, but you do not seem

able to find it. Do you expect to find your ideal in any living

woman? "

" I have found it, " he answered, wondering at the ingenuity and

complexity of her mind--and of his own, for that matter--of all

mind indeed. Deep below deep it lay, staggering him at times by

its fathomless reaches. " I hope you will take seriously what I

am going to say, for it will explain so much. When I began to be

interested in your picture I was so because it coincided with the

ideal I had in mind--the thing that you think changes swiftly.

That was nearly seven years ago. Since then it has never changed.

When I saw you at your school on Riverside Drive I was fully

convinced. Although I have said nothing, I have remained so.

Perhaps you think I had no right to any such feelings. Most people

would agree with you. I had them and do have them just the same,

and it explains my relation to your mother. When she came to me

once in Louisville and told me of her difficulties I was glad to

help her for your sake. That has been my reason ever since,

although she does not know that. In some respects, Berenice, your

mother is a little dull. All this while I have been in love with

you--intensely so. As you stand there now you seem to me amazingly

beautiful--the ideal I have been telling you about. Don't be

disturbed; I sha'n't press any attentions on you. " (Berenice had

moved very slightly. She was concerned as much for him as for

herself. His power was so wide, his power so great. She could

not help taking him seriously when he was so serious. ) " I have

done whatever I have done in connection with you and your mother

because I have been in love with you and because I wanted you to

become the splendid thing I thought you ought to become. You have

not known it, but you are the cause of my building the house on

Fifth Avenue--the principal reason. I wanted to build something

worthy of you. A dream? Certainly. Everything we do seems to

have something of that quality. Its beauty, if there is any, is

due to you. I made it beautiful thinking of you.

He paused, and Berenice gave no sign. Her first impulse had been

to object, but her vanity, her love of art, her love of power--all

were touched. At the same time she was curious now as to whether

he had merely expected to take her as his mistress or to wait until

he could honor her as his wife.

" I suppose you are wondering whether I ever expected to marry you

or not, " he went on, getting the thought out of her mind. " I am

no different from many men in that respect, Berenice. I will be

frank. I wanted you in any way that I could get you. I was living

in the hope all along that you would fall in love with me--as I

had with you. I hated Braxmar here, not long ago, when he appeared

on the scene, but I could never have thought of interfering. I

was quite prepared to give you up. I have envied every man I have

ever seen with you--young and old. I have even envied your mother

for being so close to you when I could not be. At the same time

I have wanted you to have everything that would help you in any

way. I did not want to interfere with you in case you found some

one whom you could truly love if I knew that you could not love

me. There is the whole story outside of anything you may know.

But it is not because of this that I came to-day. Not to tell you

this. "

He paused, as if expecting her to say something, though she made

no comment beyond a questioning " Yes? "

" The thing that I have come to say is that I want you to go on as

you were before. Whatever you may think of me or of what I have

just told you, I want you to believe that I am sincere and

disinterested in what I am telling you now. My dream in connection

with you is not quite over. Chance might make me eligible if you

should happen to care. But I want you to go on and be happy,

regardless of me. I have dreamed, but I dare say it has been a

mistake. Hold your head high--you have a right to. Be a lady.

Marry any one you really love. I will see that you have a suitable

marriage portion. I love you, Berenice, but I will make it a

fatherly affection from now on. When I die I will put you in my

will. But go on now in the spirit you were going before. I really

can't be happy unless I think you are going to be. "

He paused, still looking at her, believing for the time being what

he said. If he should die she would find herself in his will.

If she were to go on and socialize and seek she might find some

one to love, but also she might think of him more kindly before

she did so. What would be the cost of her as a ward compared to

his satisfaction and delight in having her at least friendly and

sympathetic and being in her good graces and confidence?

Berenice, who had always been more or less interested in him,

temperamentally biased, indeed, in his direction because of his

efficiency, simplicity, directness, and force, was especially

touched in this instance by his utter frankness and generosity.

She might question his temperamental control over his own sincerity

in the future, but she could scarcely question that at present he

was sincere. Moreover, his long period of secret love and admiration,

the thought of so powerful a man dreaming of her in this fashion,

was so flattering. It soothed her troubled vanity and shame in

what had gone before. His straightforward confession had a kind

of nobility which was electric, moving. She looked at him as he

stood there, a little gray about the temples--the most appealing

ornament of some men to some women--and for the life of her she

could not help being moved by a kind of tenderness, sympathy,

mothering affection. Obviously he did need the woman his attitude

seemed to show that he needed, some woman of culture, spirit,

taste, amorousness; or, at least, he was entitled to dream of her.

As he stood before her he seemed a kind of superman, and yet also

a bad boy--handsome, powerful, hopeful, not so very much older

than herself now, impelled by some blazing internal force which

harried him on and on. How much did he really care for her? How

much could he? How much could he care for any one? Yet see all he

had done to interest her. What did that mean? To say all this?

To do all this? Outside was his car brown and radiant in the snow.

He was the great Frank Algernon Cowperwood, of Chicago, and he

was pleading with her, a mere chit of a girl, to be kind to him,

not to put him out of her life entirely. It touched her intellect,

her pride, her fancy.

Aloud she said: " I like you better now. I really believe in you.

I never did, quite, before. Not that I think I ought to let you

spend your money on me or mother--I don't. But I admire you. You

make me. I understand how it is, I think. I know what your

ambitions are. I have always felt that I did, in part. But you

mustn't talk to me any more now. I want to think. I want to think

over what you have said. I don't know whether I can bring myself

to it or not. " (She noticed that his eyes seemed to move somehow

in their deepest depths again. ) " But we won't talk about it any

more at present. "

" But, Berenice, " he added, with a real plea in his voice, " I wonder

if you do understand. I have been so lonely--I am--"

" Yes, I do, " she replied, holding out her hand. " We are going to

be friends, whatever happens, from now on, because I really like

you. You mustn't ask me to decide about the other, though, to-day.

I can't do it. I don't want to. I don't care to. "

" Not when I would so gladly give you everything--when I need it

so little? "

" Not until I think it out for myself. I don't think so, though.

No, " she replied, with an air. " There, Mr. Guardian Father, " she

laughed, pushing his hand away.

Cowperwood's heart bounded. He would have given millions to take

her close in his arms. As it was he smiled appealingly.

" Don't you want to jump in and come to New York with me? If your

mother isn't at the apartment you could stop at the Netherland. "

" No, not to-day. I expect to be in soon. I will let you know,

or mother will. "

He bustled out and into the machine after a moment of parley,

waving to her over the purpling snow of the evening as his machine

tore eastward, planning to make New York by dinner-time. If he

could just keep her in this friendly, sympathetic attitude. If

he only could!

Chapter LIV

Wanted--Fifty-year Franchises

Whatever his momentary satisfaction in her friendly acceptance of

his confession, the uncertain attitude of Berenice left Cowperwood

about where he was before. By a strange stroke of fate Braxmar,

his young rival, had been eliminated, and Berenice had been made

to see him, Cowperwood, in his true colors of love and of service

for her. Yet plainly she did not accept them at his own valuation.

More than ever was he conscious of the fact that he had fallen

in tow of an amazing individual, one who saw life from a distinct

and peculiar point of view and who was not to be bent to his will.

That fact more than anything else--for her grace and beauty merely

emblazoned it--caused him to fall into a hopeless infatuation.

He said to himself over and over, " Well, I can live without her

if I must, " but at this stage the mere thought was an actual stab

in his vitals. What, after all, was life, wealth, fame, if you

couldn't have the woman you wanted--love, that indefinable,

unnamable coddling of the spirit which the strongest almost more

than the weakest crave? At last he saw clearly, as within a

chalice-like nimbus, that the ultimate end of fame, power, vigor

was beauty, and that beauty was a compound of the taste, the

emotion, the innate culture, passion, and dreams of a woman like

Berenice Fleming. That was it: that was it. And beyond was nothing

save crumbling age, darkness, silence.

In the mean time, owing to the preliminary activity and tact of

his agents and advisers, the Sunday newspapers were vying with one

another in describing the wonders of his new house in New York--its

cost, the value of its ground, the wealthy citizens with whom the

Cowperwoods would now be neighbors. There were double-column

pictures of Aileen and Cowperwood, with articles indicating them

as prospective entertainers on a grand scale who would unquestionably

be received because of their tremendous wealth. As a matter of

fact, this was purely newspaper gossip and speculation. While the

general columns made news and capital of his wealth, special society

columns, which dealt with the ultra-fashionable, ignored him

entirely. Already the machination of certain Chicago social figures

in distributing information as to his past was discernible in the

attitude of those clubs, organizations, and even churches, membership

in which constitutes a form of social passport to better and higher

earthly, if not spiritual, realms. His emissaries were active

enough, but soon found that their end was not to be gained in a

day. Many were waiting locally, anxious enough to get in, and

with social equipments which the Cowperwoods could scarcely boast.

After being blackballed by one or two exclusive clubs, seeing his

application for a pew at St. Thomas's quietly pigeon-holed for the

present, and his invitations declined by several multimillionaires

whom he met in the course of commercial transactions, he began to

feel that his splendid home, aside from its final purpose as an

art-museum, could be of little value.

At the same time Cowperwood's financial genius was constantly being

rewarded by many new phases of materiality chiefly by an offensive

and defensive alliance he was now able to engineer between himself

and the house of Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb & Co. Seeing the iron

manner in which he had managed to wrest victory out of defeat after

the first seriously contested election, these gentlemen had

experienced a change of heart and announced that they would now

gladly help finance any new enterprise which Cowperwood might

undertake. Among many other financiers, they had heard of his

triumph in connection with the failure of American Match.

" Dot must be a right cleffer man, dot Cowperwood, " Mr. Gotloeb

told several of his partners, rubbing his hands and smiling. " I

shouldt like to meet him. "

And so Cowperwood was manoeuvered into the giant banking office,

where Mr. Gotloeb extended a genial hand.

" I hear much of Chicawkgo, " he explained, in his semi-German,

semi-Hebraic dialect, " but almozd more uff you. Are you goink to

swallow up all de street-railwaiss unt elefated roats out dere? "

Cowperwood smiled his most ingenuous smile.

" Why? Would you like me to leave a few for you? "

" Not dot exzagly, but I might not mint sharink in some uff dem wit

you. "

" You can join with me at any time, Mr. Gotloeb, as you must know.

The door is always very, very wide open for you. "

" I musd look into dot some more. It loogs very promising to me.

I am gladt to meet you. "

The great external element in Cowperwood's financial success--and

one which he himself had foreseen from the very beginning--was the

fact that Chicago was developing constantly. What had been when

he arrived a soggy, messy plain strewn with shanties, ragged

sidewalks, a higgledy-piggledy business heart, was now truly an

astounding metropolis which had passed the million mark in population

and which stretched proud and strong over the greater part of Cook

County. Where once had been a meager, makeshift financial section,

with here and there only a splendid business building or hotel or

a public office of some kind, there were now canon-like streets

lined with fifteen and even eighteen story office buildings, from

the upper stories of which, as from watch-towers, might be surveyed

the vast expanding regions of simple home life below. Farther out

were districts of mansions, parks, pleasure resorts, great worlds

of train-yards and manufacturing areas. In the commercial heart

of this world Frank Algernon Cowperwood had truly become a figure

of giant significance. How wonderful it is that men grow until,

like colossi, they bestride the world, or, like banyan-trees, they

drop roots from every branch and are themselves a forest--a forest

of intricate commercial life, of which a thousand material aspects

are the evidence. His street-railway properties were like a

net--the parasite Gold Thread--linked together as they were, and

draining two of the three important " sides" of the city.

In 1886, when he had first secured a foothold, they had been

capitalized at between six and seven millions (every device for

issuing a dollar on real property having been exhausted). To-day,

under his management, they were capitalized at between sixty and

seventy millions. The majority of the stock issued and sold was

subject to a financial device whereby twenty per cent. controlled

eighty per cent., Cowperwood holding that twenty per cent. and

borrowing money on it as hypothecated collateral. In the case of

the West Side corporation, a corporate issue of over thirty millions

had been made, and these stocks, owing to the tremendous carrying

power of the roads and the swelling traffic night and morning of

poor sheep who paid their hard-earned nickels, had a market value

which gave the road an assured physical value of about three times

the sum for which it could have been built. The North Chicago

company, which in 1886 had a physical value of little more than a

million, could not now be duplicated for less than seven millions,

and was capitalized at nearly fifteen millions. The road was

valued at over one hundred thousand dollars more per mile than the

sum for which it could actually have been replaced. Pity the poor

groveling hack at the bottom who has not the brain-power either

to understand or to control that which his very presence and

necessities create.

These tremendous holdings, paying from ten to twelve per cent. on

every hundred-dollar share, were in the control, if not in the

actual ownership, of Cowperwood. Millions in loans that did not

appear on the books of the companies he had converted into actual

cash, wherewith he had bought houses, lands, equipages, paintings,

government bonds of the purest gold value, thereby assuring himself

to that extent of a fortune vaulted and locked, absolutely secure.

After much toiling and moiling on the part of his overworked legal

department he had secured a consolidation, under the title of the

Consolidated Traction Company of Illinois, of all outlying lines,

each having separate franchises and capitalized separately, yet

operated by an amazing hocus-pocus of contracts and agreements in

single, harmonious union with all his other properties. The North

and West Chicago companies he now proposed to unite into a third

company to be called the Union Traction Company. By taking up the

ten and twelve per cent. issues of the old North and West companies

and giving two for one of the new six-per-cent one-hundred-dollar-share

Union Traction stocks in their stead, he could satisfy the current

stockholders, who were apparently made somewhat better off thereby,

and still create and leave for himself a handsome margin of nearly

eighty million dollars. With a renewal of his franchises for twenty,

fifty, or one hundred years he would have fastened on the city of

Chicago the burden of yielding interest on this somewhat fictitious

value and would leave himself personally worth in the neighborhood

of one hundred millions.

This matter of extending his franchises was a most difficult and

intricate business, however. It involved overcoming or outwitting

a recent and very treacherous increase of local sentiment against

him. This had been occasioned by various details which related

to his elevated roads. To the two lines already built he now added

a third property, the Union Loop. This he prepared to connect not

only with his own, but with other outside elevated properties,

chief among which was Mr. Schryhart's South Side " L. " He would

then farm out to his enemies the privilege of running trains on

this new line. However unwillingly, they would be forced to avail

themselves of the proffered opportunity, because within the region

covered by the new loop was the true congestion--here every one

desired to come either once or twice during the day or night. By

this means Cowperwood would secure to his property a paying interest

from the start.

This scheme aroused a really unprecedented antagonism in the breasts

of Cowperwood's enemies. By the Arneel-Hand-Schryhart contingent

it was looked upon as nothing short of diabolical. The newspapers,

directed by such men as Haguenin, Hyssop, Ormonde Ricketts, and

Truman Leslie MacDonald (whose father was now dead, and whose

thoughts as editor of the Inquirer were almost solely directed

toward driving Cowperwood out of Chicago), began to shout, as a

last resort, in the interests of democracy. Seats for everybody

(on Cowperwood's lines), no more straps in the rush hours, three-cent

fares for workingmen, morning and evening, free transfers from all

of Cowperwood's lines north to west and west to north, twenty per

cent. of the gross income of his lines to be paid to the city.

The masses should be made cognizant of their individual rights and

privileges. Such a course, while decidedly inimical to Cowperwood's

interests at the present time, and as such strongly favored by the

majority of his opponents, had nevertheless its disturbing elements

to an ultra-conservative like Hosmer Hand.

" I don't know about this, Norman, " he remarked to Schryhart, on

one occasion. " I don't know about this. It's one thing to stir

up the public, but it's another to make them forget. This is a

restless, socialistic country, and Chicago is the very hotbed and

center of it. Still, if it will serve to trip him up I suppose

it will do for the present. The newspapers can probably smooth

it all over later. But I don't know. "

Mr. Hand was of that order of mind that sees socialism as a horrible

importation of monarchy-ridden Europe. Why couldn't the people

be satisfied to allow the strong, intelligent, God-fearing men of

the community to arrange things for them? Wasn't that what democracy

meant? Certainly it was--he himself was one of the strong. He

could not help distrusting all this radical palaver. Still,

anything to hurt Cowperwood--anything.

Cowperwood was not slow to realize that public sentiment was now

in danger of being thoroughly crystallized against him by newspaper

agitation. Although his franchises would not expire--the large

majority of them--before January 1, 1903, yet if things went on

at this rate it would be doubtful soon whether ever again he would

be able to win another election by methods legitimate or illegitimate.

Hungry aldermen and councilmen might be venal and greedy enough

to do anything he should ask, provided he was willing to pay enough,

but even the thickest-hided, the most voracious and corrupt

politician could scarcely withstand the searching glare of publicity

and the infuriated rage of a possibly aroused public opinion. By

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